Universe of Two: A Novel

By Stephen P. Kiernan

“Stephen Kiernan has pulled off the nearly impossible...The most tender, terrifying, relevant book you’ll read this year.” — Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us and The Lost Family

From the critically acclaimed author of The Baker’s Secret and The Curiosity comes a novel of conscience, love, and redemption—a fascinating fictionalized account of the life of Charlie Fisk, a gifted mathematician who was drafted into Manhattan Project and ordered against his morals to build the detonator for the atomic bomb. With his musician wife, he spends his postwar life seeking redemption—and they find it together.

Graduating from Harvard at the height of World War II, brilliant mathematician Charlie Fish is assigned to the Manhattan Project. Working with some of the age’s greatest scientific minds, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, Charlie is assigned the task of designing and building the detonator of the atomic bomb.

As he performs that work Charlie suffers a crisis of conscience, which his wife, Brenda—unaware of the true nature of Charlie’s top-secret task—mistakes as self-doubt. She urges him to set aside his qualms and continue. Once the bombs strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the feelings of culpability devastate him and Brenda.

At the war’s end, Charlie receives a scholarship to pursue a PhD in physics at Stanford—an opportunity he and Brenda hope will allow them a fresh start. But the past proves inescapable. All any of his new colleagues can talk about is the bomb, and what greater atomic weapons might be on the horizon. Haunted by guilt, Charlie and Brenda leave Stanford and decide to dedicate the rest of their lives to making amends for the evil he helped to birth into the world.

Based on the life of the actual mathematician Charles B. Fisk, Universe of Two combines riveting historical drama with a poignant love story. Stephen Kiernan has conjured a remarkable account of two people struggling to heal their consciences and find peace in a world forever changed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062878465

Stephen P. Kiernan

Stephen P. Kiernan is the author of the novels The Curiosity, The Hummingbird, The Baker's Secret, Universe of Two, and The Glass Chateau. A graduate of Middlebury College, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, he spent more than twenty years as a journalist, winning many award before turning to fiction writing. He has also worked nationwide on improving end of life medical care through greater use of hospice. Kiernan lives in Vermont.

Book preview

1.

I MET CHARLIE FISH in Chicago in the fall of 1943. First I dismissed him, then I liked him, then I ruined him, then I saved him. In return he taught me what love was, lust, too, and above all what it is like to have a powerful conscience.

On first impression, Charlie was weak-chinned. To my girlfriends I might have called him a milquetoast, soft as an old banana. Which only goes to show how smart a nineteen-year-old girl is about anything. Now I know better. It turns out the greatest kinds of strength are hidden, and move slowly, and cannot be stopped by anything until they have changed the world.

Which he did twice.

I am not exaggerating, I was there on both occasions. One time I helped him, and the other time I hurt him. I hadn’t intended any harm, but there’s no denying that I used my influence to make him do terrible things. Irreversible things. He forgave me, that was in his nature, but I haven’t forgiven myself—even now, all these many years later. Some deeds are like tattoos, and the ink of regret is permanent.

How did it start? As innocently as the chiming of a bell when a shop door opens.

I was in the back office when I heard it ring, letting me know a customer had come in. At that moment I was frustrated, opening a shipment of sheet music for the high school chorus Christmas show. It was goose bumps chilly in the store, because we rarely had customers till afternoon and my mother wanted to scrimp on heat. But it wasn’t the cold that bothered me. It was the company that we used for sheet music supply. Their prices were the best, and their delivery the quickest. For some reason, though, they triple-sealed their packages, using that thick brown packing tape with the bad glue smell, so that it was all but impossible to get them open. Like breaking into Fort Knox, just to get the four-part harmony pages for Jingle Bells. Mr. Kulak, the high school principal and choir director, would be in to pick up the sheet music during his short lunch break. It was eleven thirty and I was nowhere near getting that package open.

Anyone here? the customer called.

Be right out, I hollered, which my mother would have said was not satisfactory customer service, but then again, she was never the one who had to deal with that tape.

It was amazing that life during the war continued with that much normality. To me, Chicago seemed starstruck. Movie matinees every Saturday after we closed early, they swept me away. The follies coming through town. Boys home on leave who would squire me around, their best pal toting a friend of mine too. We’d go to a show with them in uniform and us in patched-up nylons, feeling grown up. In spite of whatever hijinks they might have been dreaming of, all those boys really hoped for was a decent good-night kiss. Which I gave, easy as a penny. What did it cost us, anyhow, to allow them that? With what they were going to be facing? Some of my friends wouldn’t smooch a soldier on the first date, in case he got the wrong idea, or they got a reputation for being fast. But I would have kissed a hundred boys in uniform, just to give them something about home to dream on while they went and did the world’s worst job.

Still, there were plenty of days that the world felt upside down. So many boys were gone in the service. My brother, Frank, the born natural at fixing cars? He’d enlisted at nineteen. Now he was stationed in England, working in a motor pool. Who knew when we’d see him again?

Far worse, we all knew families who had received the horrible telegram. Some mothers would never be the same, like Mrs. Winchester, the best soprano in our church’s choir until her Michael came home in a coffin and she didn’t sing anymore. Some fathers became bitter and silent, like Mr. Winchester, who perched on his front stoop and glared at people like he was daring them to start something.

Sorrow was in the air. Sometimes it seemed like half the people in that city were walking around with broken hearts of one kind or another.

So maybe a package I couldn’t unwrap was a small complaint, maybe I was self-absorbed and unaware. But what did I know? My life was so small then. I had no idea.

I’d tried peeling that tape off with my hands, only tore off an inch or so, and it made my fingers hurt. I found the big scissors, but they barely managed to snip off the extra strip on one corner. Still, I was determined.

Anyone here? the customer called.

Be right ooouut, I sang back, not much concealing my annoyance. Then the big scissors slipped, and though I pulled back quickly, the point of one arm jabbed me in the forefinger.

Damn, I grunted, though louder than I should have.

Is everything all right? the customer asked. Is there some kind of trouble?

No trouble, I sang out, before jamming my finger in my mouth, sucking the metallic taste of blood. Be right there, I completely promise.

Cursing in front of a customer? My mother would have wrung my neck. But she was off at her Monday war wives’ luncheon, not due back till one. I straightened my skirt and stopped before the little mirror to make sure I was presentable. A lock of my hair had come out from its comb, dangling in front of my face. I was in the middle of arranging it back into place when I heard the chord.

In the olden days, they used to have trumpets come out and play a fanfare before the king spoke, to shut everyone up I suppose. And plenty of paintings of angels have cherubs making music in the background whenever something big is happening.

This chord? It was a hallelujah. A call from the heavens. Or at least from a guy who knew what an organ could do. Because I scurried out of the office and there he sat at the Hammond spinet model, our entry-level instrument. He didn’t choose the church model, with its classy cabinet and thirty-two-note bass pedals, and Dubie’s Music did not carry the concert model because it was too glamorous and expensive to sell in Hyde Park.

What I saw? A fellow, skinny as a bread stick, wearing oversized pants and perched on the spinet’s throne with his eyes closed. He had his left hand on the low manual, right hand on the high manual, left foot on the bass note, right foot on the volume pedal, announcing for all the world every bit of the meaning and grandeur of a G-major chord, fully voiced, with all the trumpet stops open.

I know which key it was because I have perfect pitch. It’s not a talent, I was born that way. Maybe this is an advantage when sizing a customer up by what chord he plays first, but I promise, it is an affliction at the Christmas show when they sing "may your days be merry . . . and bright," and on that high note all the sopranos go flat.

Well, well, the skinny guy said, opening his eyes as he switched off the organ. He turned to me with a grin like a ten-year-old who’d just unwrapped his Christmas present. Not bad.

Sorry I made you wait—

But he was already off the bench and holding his hands toward the organ. Would you play for me, miss? Please?

I hung back by the door. Most customers would have said miss, or please, but not both. Also guys didn’t usually buy organs. They mostly brought a gal, let her choose, then dickered over the price. Sounds like you can play it just fine yourself, mister.

Not a lick, he said. Only G major. He gestured again, like an usher showing me to my seat. Please?

Sure, I cooed, sashaying across the sales floor. This is the Hammond spinet, built right here in Chicago. Two manuals of forty-four keys, plus a full octave of bass pedals, the largest-selling organ in the world.

He made a face. Why would anyone want to be the largest-selling anything?

Honestly?

Wouldn’t you rather be the best-sounding instead?

I sized him up. A little nervous, he had black marks on his fingertips, like he held a pencil all day. Not an indicator of musical passion, I’d say. Back then, I was constantly assessing people, measuring them. The fact that I always found myself superior had not yet dawned on me. "The sales are a sign of sound quality, sir. Of the public’s appreciation."

I see. But if you would please play—

Of course. I slipped out of my shoes, so as not to scuff the bass pedals. There are percussion and vibrato controls, plus drawbars for each manual, so you can customize your tone.

Thank you, but I only want to hear it.

Coming right up. He was an odd one, all right, but sales were slow and I wasn’t going anywhere. I switched the instrument on again—which meant I had to stall while it warmed up. That little delay is one of the pleasures of the organ, how it reminds you that it is a machine, air filling the bellows, organizing itself for you. Hammond uses ninety-one tone wheels, sir, machined to a mere one-thousandth of an inch. The transformers are sealed in wax, so the organ stays in tune regardless of changes in humidity.

He nodded, too polite to expressly tell me to shut up, but if you’re paying attention, customers give plenty of signals when they want less talk, more music.

By then the spinet model was ready anyhow. I adjusted this and that drawbar, eased back the volume pedal, and sat up straight—posture always the last thing to check before playing—then trotted into my usual demonstration repertoire: Isn’t This a Lovely Day, Monkey on a String, Cheek to Cheek. He stood close by, watching my fingers move, maybe my feet on the pedals, nodding a little with the beat.

No no, he said after I stopped. I mean, very nice. But do you have something slower, please? Maybe more sonorous?

Sonorous. I didn’t know what the word meant, but I was certainly not going to say so. Maybe I had a sale on the hook, and here it was only Monday.

Business wasn’t great, to be honest. As a hobby, my father belonged to the Chicago Amateur Radio Operators Club. Most guys were interested in broadcasting, or finding other radio buffs hundreds of miles away, but Daddy’s pleasure came from repairing the club members’ radios—tinkering and soldering in our basement. The armed forces decided that his skills could be put to better use. He’d left early that year to serve in a communications center near San Diego.

So, with my mother at the helm of the cash register, I went to work at my father’s store in Hyde Park: Dubie’s Music, selling accordions, pianos, and organs for the few buyers who remained in that corner of sweet home Chicago.

Of course that put all my hopes on hold. I’d been accepted to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, a premiere organ school with two dozen instruments to learn on. Which was thin ice all around: My family had no money for college, if anyone had gone it would have been my brother as a future breadwinner, and deep down I doubted I was good enough to play at that level. I might dream about a scholarship, or a loan of some kind, but only after the war was over. Meanwhile, any skinny guy who played a decent G chord was definitely worth my time.

Happy to, I said. Sonorous it is. I pulled out some sheet music, flipped through, and saw Chopin’s Nocturne no. 2. Now that’s a sentimental old sop, I know, and I’m no great fan of the key of E-flat major. But the composition has lots of room, air all through the melody, then busy little bursts before everything spreads out again. I started at a nice, brisk pace.

See how responsive the spinet model is, sir? I kept playing while I talked. All the sustain you want for long notes, all the precision for the trills.

Then we were both quiet. It had been a while since I’d played that piece, so I was busy reading the pages. It actually was a pretty enough composition after all. I struck the last notes, a pair of E-flats three octaves apart, and sat back with a sigh.

Skinny guy didn’t say a word. He just pulled out a handkerchief, reaching past me a little too close for a stranger, until I realized he was wiping a bit of blood off the keys, from my finger that had been poked by the scissors. He stepped back, folding the handkerchief into a neat square before tucking it away in his pocket without a word.

I closed the sheet music. How’s that for sonorous? Are you falling in love? That was as flirty as I knew how to be.

It’s all right, he announced. I was curious about what a noncathedral organ would sound like. What you have here is a well-made calliope.

A calliope? Does this place look like a circus?

In Atlantic City, for example, skinny guy continued, there is an organ with seven manuals, one thousand two hundred and thirty-five stops, and thirty-three thousand, one hundred and twelve pipes. It took eight years to build, ending in 1932. He looked smug as a dog with a fresh bone.

I bet it sounds horrible, something that giant and noisy. I bet it’s deafening.

It is a bit muddy, he admitted, or so I’ve been told.

Oh, so you’ve never heard it for yourself. What makes you so all-fired opinionated about organs, anyhow?

Until recently I was a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Which has a lovely, two-manual pipe organ.

Well, la-di-da, I thought, easing down from the bench, sliding my shoes back on. For a nonpiped instrument, mister, this one here is a beauty. Perfect for churches, concert halls, recording studios, and the finest homes. There’s nothing better for sale anywhere.

Oh, I didn’t come in to buy anything. He smiled. I wanted to listen.

I put my hands on my hips. Well, then you’re wasting my time.

His face made a surprised expression, eyes wide and the eyebrows way up. I suppose I am, he said. I’m sorry. How might I make it up to you?

That was how he wound up in the back room with me. He took the scissors from the unopened box and put them aside gently, as if they were a sleeping cat. We made conversation. Turning eighteen in three months, he was sure to be drafted.

You aren’t going to enlist? I asked him. Lots of fellas made a big boast about doing such a thing. That was my kind of guy.

Look at me, he said, holding his bony arms wide. Not exactly a born warrior. The only way I’d survive beyond an hour is if I stood sideways, and made too thin a target for a rifleman to hit.

But, he said, he was a bit of a math whiz. His uncle, a professor at the university, had brought him into a team of young guys doing calculations for the government.

They try to make it sound manly, saying it’s classified and so on, skinny guy continued, all the while using his fingernails to pick one corner of the thick brown tape upward. But really it’s plain mathematics all day.

I’d been no slouch at math myself, in high school, which I had only graduated from that June, and probably would have won the math award if I hadn’t been a girl. But it was not like today, with calculators and computers and so on. We had slide rules, and long-form division. Not to mention that any student skilled at math, boy or girl, gets the award now. Well, some of the time.

Not too boring, he continued. And miles better than getting killed. Or worse, having to kill someone else.

Which gave me something new to think on. I’d worried plenty about Frank and the other neighborhood boys getting killed. But before then, I hadn’t spent ten seconds considering what it would be like for them to kill someone.

How old are you? he asked, direct as you please with such a personal question.

I never gave anyone that information in those days, yet I answered this boy right out: Nineteen.

Oh, he said, registering that I was older.

Since last month. What’s all this math for, anyhow? I’d taken a seat on the desk, legs crossed ladylike and acting casual, like guys came to help in the back room every day, yawn. My mother would have had kittens, right there on the office floor.

No one knows, he said, making tiny progress in getting a little flap of tape loose. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. It must be important, though, because the assignments come from way up in the military.

I straightened my sweater. I’d heard plenty such talk before. You don’t say.

Meanwhile he tightened his grip and pulled straight up. All three layers of tape came away in one fat strip, making a ripping sound as the box popped open.

There you go, he said, the coil of tape dangling from his hand like a just-killed snake. He turned to drop it in the wastebasket, then held that skinny but surprisingly strong hand out to me. Charlie Fish.

Brenda Dubie, I said, shaking hands. Pleased to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too, Brenda.

But neither of us let go, for a second there, neither one. Talk about a chord playing.

The little bell on our front door jingled again. I whirled to see Mr. Kulak striding into the store, taking off his hat. I rushed forward to meet him, not doing anything wrong, but feeling anyhow like I’d just been caught red-handed.

2.

THE BOYS OF THE Metallurgic Lab at the University of Chicago worked at gray metal desks, with wooden chairs on wheels that creaked at the least movement; drawers that resisted, complained, and sometimes refused to open; flimsy in- and out-boxes on the desks’ front corners; and bare bulbs overhead. In winter, the room smelled of dry heat, iron from the rusty radiators. In summer, the scent was boys’ sweat.

All the desks were arrayed in a circle—so that no mathematician was ranked above another, and each received equal amounts of daylight from the wall that was all windows. The older workers did a geometric calculation, however, determined that desks to the south received 11 percent more light, and claimed those places for themselves. But some younger boys found the southern advantage to be seasonal, true only in summer, and they took proud possession of the northern desks. The debate over whose calculations were correct resurfaced whenever the workload was light, complete with competing formulas chalked across the big front blackboard.

There were two exceptions to the circle: one desk space open for the unit’s manager to enter and exit the circle, and a desk by itself near the door, which Cohen occupied. A recent Columbia graduate, he was disliked by everyone.

Charlie toiled in a middling desk, not caring to join either side in the location dispute, preferring to wrangle his assignments into order with what seemed, compared with his peers, to be of limited brilliance but limitless patience. He would work and work a problem, without complaint, however long it took to find a solution.

That is why, you tiresome boy, Cohen said on his way past, dropping a new assignment sheet atop Charlie’s overflowing in-basket, you get to do arcs. And they want this one pronto.

Arcs, meaning curves: how an object moves through space, where on a sphere to place electrical connections, what navigation path will help a vessel avoid a problem at sea. The other boys worked on concrete tasks: how much weight a ship could carry on deck before becoming top-heavy (which they guessed had to do with tank transport), what temperature a metal would reach during bursts of intense pressure (which everyone assumed meant the barrels of gunships), plus the raw number-crunching of supplying fuel, bullets, uniforms, tires, bandages, meals, coffins.

The primary difference in his work, Charlie gradually realized, was pi. No one else was reckoning with the irrational number. Because every arc problem involved pi, he could never arrive at a precise answer. It would always be approximate.

Charlie scanned Cohen’s latest assignment sheet. This time the object weighed 10,000 pounds, was released 11,000 feet in the air at a speed of 357 miles per hour. What would its arc be, how long would it fall, and how far away would it land?

Charlie took a pencil and began to draw on the assignment sheet. He liked to start every problem with a picture, to visualize what he needed to know. But halfway through the sketch, his hand went still. His mind had wandered to the young woman he’d met on Monday, Brenda, and the pleasantest thirty minutes in Chicago since August, when he’d arrived from Boston. Granted, she was a regular weathervane of moodiness. But she played the organ like an angel. And when he tore off that packing tape, her face had brightened like the sun coming out. Monday was his only day with a longer lunch break, though, which made getting back to that organ store feel further away than next spring.

Humming to himself, he drew the problem again: altitude of release, dotted line of the downward arc. To represent the target, he used a swastika.

Does anyone think it is possible for Cohen to be a more inefficient jerk?

Charlie knew who’d said it without raising his head. Richard Mather, Andover grad, snatched from Yale for a place on this team, winter home in Manhattan and summer place on Long Island, an unapologetic snob and an expert at baiting all of them into debates. On his desk Mather kept a framed photo of his sister, a smiling, tomboyish blonde holding a tennis racquet, which he would wave periodically before the noses of the other mathematicians. Look all you like, suckers, because you will never get close.

Shut up, Mather. That was Santangelo, a kid from Milwaukee whose hair was all tight coils. As a result Cohen called him Steel Wool, purely for the pleasure of annoying him. Santangelo was a mad-dash genius at arithmetic. If you walked up to him out of the blue and said, Three hundred and fifty-seven times six hundred and twenty-four, Santangelo would shrug and answer, Two hundred and twenty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight. Divided by sixteen? He’d blink twice and say, Thirteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty-three. Then he’d bend back over the lab notebook he was filling with calculations as fast as he could scribble them.

Now Mather had his hands on his hips. Because you know I’m right, Santangelo?

Because you are such an itch.

Mather swaggered away from his desk. Charlie knew: argument was this guy’s favorite way of procrastinating. Let’s review the facts.

A groan went up from the room.

First, look at how he delivers new assignments, fifteen minutes after the workday starts. Every one of us has already begun something, has prioritized our tasks—

Which in your case includes lots of talking.

Second, Steel Wool, consider how he distributes our chores willy-nilly, this desk to that, when half a minute spent organizing his sheets beforehand would enable him to deliver them in one pass through all the desks, saving time and reducing distraction.

Mather, will you please shut up? Charlie rarely contributed to the parleys, but he was sick of trying to solve arcs while a brighter kid gabbed the morning away.

Ah, Fish takes the bait. Mather sidled around the circle of boys. You answer me, then. What do you think of our wonderful boss?

Charlie put his pencil down. He hated Cohen. The guy had two ways of speaking: commands and criticism. Incapable of telling a story or carrying on a conversation, either he was telling you what to do, or he was belittling what you had done.

Suddenly he’s shy, Mather crowed. Isn’t that cute? He snatched Charlie’s pencil away, holding it like a microphone. No comment on the scandal, Mayor Fish?

All right, Charlie said. He’s annoying. And bossy.

There. Mather flourished the pencil overhead like a conductor’s baton at the end of a symphony. The definitive response.

Also smarter than you, Charlie added, and the room erupted in jeers.

Well said, Fish, Santangelo cried, as Mather dropped the pencil and played at hangdog while shuffling back to his desk.

The hall door swung open and Cohen returned, Professor John Simmons following two steps behind. All the math boys stood.

At ease, fellas, Simmons chortled. As you were.

John Simmons was the least pretentious man in the building. He greeted people in the hallway, did not close his office door even for secure calls, and took the time to learn the boys’ names. But no mistake, he was also second in command, head of the physics department in Denver, acolyte of the Nobel Prize–winning genius Arthur Compton. He also happened to be Charlie’s uncle, which was how the boy ended up on the math team. His mother had asked her brother to keep a fragile fellow out of battle.

Simmons walked through the room shaking hands, introducing himself to the new arrivals, then taking his place in the circle’s one-desk gap. He told the boys to be seated.

Fellas, I don’t mind you clowning around in here a little bit, Simmons said, with a half-suppressed grin. But there is a war on, you know. There are rooms exactly like this—in Munich, Berlin, perhaps Tokyo—where bright young boys like you are working day and night on calculations to help them hurt us. And hurt our country.

With the group properly sobered, he began slowly pacing. I’m here this morning to tell you that our project has been given additional status and urgency. Last night I was informed that all of you are now ineligible for the draft.

A restrained cheer went through the room.

Not so fast. Simmons stopped in place. You now answer to the United States military. Starting in January your paychecks will come from Uncle Sam. I imagine at some point someone in a uniform will come in here and give each of you a rank. You will receive orders, and you will obey them.

Giving that idea time to sink in, he recommenced pacing. Our project’s security level has been heightened, too, from classified to top secret. From here on, it will be a court-martial offense if you tell anyone what you are doing here—not your buddies, not your girlfriend, not your family. Who your boss is, what you do all day, how many pencils you go through, every single thing here is now confidential military business. Loose lips on your part will be treated by my superiors as an error on my part, which would make me . . . He paused to glare at them. Unpleasant. Any questions?

There were none. For once even Mather had nothing to say.

Our work will intensify. Your tasks may seem odd, but I assure you, they are essential to the war effort. You’ll learn more about that soon. When you do, you may wish for the days when you were in the dark.

Simmons stood to his full height. Get to work, boys. And remember: there are other rooms, exactly like this.

The professor strode off—with one curt nod and one word, Charlie, his only recognition of his nephew.

Cohen came to the front. Everything on your plate, clear it by Friday.

The math team groaned.

Quit whining, babies. Every job in your box must be done, documented, and on my desk before you leave for the weekend. Monday morning is a whole new ball game. He strutted out the door, his walk a stiff imitation of Simmons’s.

Charlie frowned at the problem on his desk. Pi, that numerical elbow, made everything difficult. He took up his pencil, saw that Mather had broken the point, and found a fresh one. He was stalling, though, because he could not answer a basic question: What crazy giant gun would it take to shoot a bullet that weighed ten thousand pounds?

3.

CHARLIE FISH CAME TO the store every Monday. We’d chat, we’d flirt, one time we split a sandwich—egg salad he’d brought from a deli. He told me about growing up in Boston: singing with various choirs, being the youngest in his college class, how his mother loved to stroll on Saturday mornings beside the Charles River, the crew boats darting up the river like giant water bugs. Eventually I put him to work in the back room and he made no complaints. Soon, though, he’d ask me to play. And why not? In another month he’d be a draftee. What harm could there be in giving him something to hum when he was far away? Often he sang along, a fine tenor, steadier than I’d expected.

One way I’ve been lucky: I never had to live without music. My mother started piano lessons when my outstretched fingers only spanned three keys. Those years I was hoping to attend the conservatory helped me develop a discipline. Even now, though my hands are wrinkled and weak, I manage to touch the ivories for a few minutes every day.

Sometimes afterward I linger on the bench, and imagine all those soldiers far from home, with bad food and foreign landscapes, their clothes stained with the scent of fear. I bet they whistled and hummed and sang to themselves all the time. Something calm when you’re afraid. Something busy when you’re bored. Something sad when you’re missing home or your girl.

Performing for Charlie, those afternoons in 1943, felt like living in a snow globe. The world’s brutality made our haven of innocence all the sweeter.

While I could have impressed him with classical pieces, at work I preferred playing trendy stuff: Oh What a Beautiful Morning, Paper Doll, That Old Black Magic. My favorite that fall was Oklahoma because the Hammond could make the wind come sweeping down the plain on one set of keys, while on the other set the last syllable aaahh of Oklahoma was still in the air. These days I can still play those tunes from memory, but I don’t do it often. They sound insubstantial as cotton candy.

Charlie liked sadder songs. Whenever I asked him what next, he’d suggest As Times Goes By, or You’ll Never Know, or a classical piece like Moonlight Sonata. While I played, he would stand close beside me, maybe humming the melody, always watching closely. Funny thing, though. These days I play the ones he liked all the time, and they don’t sound fluffy. They still touch the heart.

Why do you like those blue tunes, anyhow? I teased him one Monday.

Maybe it’s what playing them does to the organist.

Go on. I waved him off. What’s the real reason?

How the organ sounds, he said. How notes continue, and how they fade.

Whatever do you mean?

It’s physics—what the wind does to make a note. That’s no accident. He smiled. Science makes the air sound beautiful.

I thought maybe Charlie was showing off. But there I was, playing for him as fancy as you please. That morning I’d styled my hair to look nice in back too. Which he would see while I was on the bench. Maybe we were playing the same game.

I remember one spring when I was still in my sixties, I saw a movie about the courtship rituals of birds. The grebes did a kind of ballet, it was that elegant, with one bird mirroring the long-necked moves of the other, until they both went running away across the surface of the water. The birds of paradise swept their wings out, puffed their chests, and danced around on tree branches. And the whooping cranes? They leaped and spread their wings and went crazy wild for each other. Oh, that movie made me ache to be young again. It also reminded me that my courtship with Charlie was painfully reserved. More than a month after that first handshake, we had not touched again.

The other thing I noticed was that each Monday Charlie showed up a little later. It made me nervous, for one simple reason. My mother.

The war wives’ group had the use of the function room only till one o’clock, when the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce board met. Then it was a two-block walk back to the store. You could set your watch by when my mother would come striding in—1:05 and never a second later, taking charge and wanting a full update on every littlest thing that happened in the sixty-five minutes she’d been gone.

Each week Charlie arrived later past noon. I began to feel squeezed, and would have to hurry him out the door. He was always nice as peaches, and let me shoo him off without a complaint. He’d stand on the sidewalk and gawk through the big window, wave or do jazz hands, something to make me smile before shuffling back to his math office—wherever it was. If I asked what street, he’d go cute and change the subject.

One week he didn’t arrive till almost quarter to one. I was triple disappointed. First, there’d be no time for helping with chores. Second, I’d only have time to play about two songs, and I’d spent the week learning five that together sent a little flirty message. Third, we’d barely have any time to visit before I’d have to send him along.

But Charlie seemed in the opposite mood. He was gabby and casual, humming to himself while he wandered around the store. The clock above the register read twelve minutes till one. He opened the covers of several pianos, playing that old standby G-major chord in various octaves. When he lifted the hood of the Chickering baby grand, trilling tunelessly up and down the black keys, I couldn’t take another second.

Did you come to buy a piano today? I said. Or to kill time?

Charlie stopped fiddling and smiled at me. You look especially good today, Brenda. That knot there, up so high, I have never seen that before.

It’s called a chignon. I slid onto the bench. It took me three tries.

Well, it was worth it.

Thanks, I said offhandedly, but was secretly pleased down to my toes. That chignon had cost me an hour, and Charlie’s compliment repaid every second. I switched on the spinet model, playing test chords so I could start the new tunes as soon as it warmed up.

Please don’t hurry, Charlie said. We’ve barely had a chance to talk.

Oh, I just have the music all through my veins this afternoon, I insisted, pulling out sheets for the songs I’d practiced.

Did you do up your nails too? He pointed, and I stared at my fingers like they belonged to someone else. What’s the occasion?

Just a Monday. I shrugged. Plain old Monday.

I noticed the clock by the register read eight to one, and immediately started in on Moonlight Becomes You, which I figured he would love because it is full of diminished chords that sound sad but also like they’re leaning toward something. I had barely finished the intro when Charlie came over and switched off the organ.

Hey, I said, sharper than I’d intended. What’s gotten into you, anyhow?

That’s the question I have for you, Brenda. Do you only want an audience? Do you not want to talk to me anymore?

Oh, Charlie, it’s the flat opposite of that, I confessed. I’m always glad when you’re here. I wait all week for the next Monday to come along.

Just like that, I started spilling the whole pot of beans. While half of my brain was bossing me to shut my yap, the other half was telling and declaring, as if this boy were headed off to the front the next morning. How smart he was, how nice and polite. I was giving away my entire reserve. Also I have to get back to work by one, and on the days when you get here later than usual—

At that I glanced out the big front window, and the jig was up. Here was my mother, low-heeled shoes and gigantic brown purse, coming up the sidewalk like a plow truck clearing snow. The clock read four minutes to one. Lunch had ended early.

Charlie didn’t seem to mind that I had trailed off in midsentence. He followed my eyes and retreated from the organ, clasping his hands behind his back.

—though you would hardly think a bowl of pudding would cause such a fuss, my mother complained, unpinning her hat as she barreled through the door. She had a habit of starting conversations right in the middle, whether you were there for the beginning or not, and would bristle like a porcupine if you asked what she was talking about. I learned it was best just to play along.

Did someone spill? I prompted.

She was tucking her huge purse behind the register. What? Of course no one spilled. But Elise insisted on having seconds, which is its own house on fire, with all the weight she’s carrying these days, hips like a whale—although come to think of it, whales don’t actually have hips, do they?—and meanwhile Nancy Burgoyne had not had firsts, and merely said no thank you to be polite.

Only then did Charlie come into her sight, over by the baby grand. Brenda, she purred, not taking her eyes off him. Why didn’t you tell me we have a customer?

You hadn’t taken half a breath so that I could.

That’s all right, she said. I forgive you.

It has long been my belief that after a child is of a certain age, the parents’ primary role is to cause embarrassment. To prove that point, my mother clapped her hands together and, with an expression as authentic as a bouquet of plastic flowers, minced over to Charlie. He wore a grin the size of the front grille on an Oldsmobile.

How do you do, Mrs. Dubie? He held out that strong hand. I’m Charlie Fish.

Pleasure to meet you, Charlie, my mother chirped, shaking hands while eyeing him all over. Are you in the market for a piano today?

Nooo, ma’am, he said, wagging his head like some old Lincoln Park bluesman testifying a song. I’m here because Mr. Dubie is out of town, as I understand it, or I would be speaking with him myself.

I see, she said. This is a business matter of some kind, then?

Nooo, ma’am, he repeated. I am here in Chicago, far from my home back east, for an assignment with the war effort. I haven’t been able to make many friends due to my responsibilities. But I have been lucky enough to make the acquaintance of your charming daughter, Brenda.

They both turned and looked at me. I felt like a goldfish in a round bowl, exposed to any and all.

Charlie pressed on. I’ve come today to ask, though I have no family nearby who can vouch for me as a decent young man, if I might take Brenda out to a show on one of my evenings off from the war effort. Would that be acceptable to you?

All at once I was peeved. How about asking me? First things first, mister.

Charlie, you seem like a good, polite boy, my mother announced. And I’m of a mind that manners still matter a great deal in this madhouse world.

Charlie nodded. Maybe more than ever.

She sighed. I suppose it would be all right, if you weren’t out too late.

Nooo, ma’am, he declared for a third time. Not a chance of that. My work starts very early in the morning.

Do you drive, Charlie?

He shook his head. It would be strictly walking or cabs for us.

Good. I’ve always maintained that driving was a job for husbands. You people are too young.

Yes, ma’am, Charlie said.

Very good, she said, preening like a mother hen. I approve.

Reviews for Universe of Two

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Something about this book bugged me and largely concerned how the characters were portrayed. Brenda, whose portions of the book are told from the first person, annoyed me, but more problematic, her motivations were never fully explored. Charlie, whose story is told in the third person, always seems a bit distant, but he annoyed me too, especially as he experiences his crisis of conscience, but fails to really put it into words. The book overall was interesting, especially in its descriptions of the Manhattan Project and the debates the scientists held about the morality of what they were doing. Still, throughout, I felt something the could be described as the glaze of contemporary eyes on this piece of past, which fails to capture the spirit and uncertainty of the times.

[fernemysteryreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charlie Fish began his contributions during WWII by calculating arcs for aerial trajectories at the Metallurgic Lab at the University of Chicago. His brilliant mathematical mind led him to New Mexico to work on the Manhattan Project. Charlie knew project assignments came through the military but in silos or compartmentalized for the project's safety from spies. When Charlie realizes the purpose of his top-secret work, his conscience is in crisis. Meeting Brenda in Chicago was the best thing ever happening to him, but would she still love him when she realizes what he's done?Brenda worked at Dubie's Music, the family music store. With her father and brother serving in the war, Brenda and her mother kept the store open, selling pianos, organs, and accordions. Her attendance at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, a premiere organ school in Ohio, would have to wait. Charlie wasn't the type of man Brenda thought she'd fall in love with, but he was in New Mexico when she figured it out.Based on the life of Charles B. Fisk, a gifted mathematician that built the detonator for the atomic bomb used in WWII, this is riveting historical fiction. With emotive writing, the characters are no longer simply names but bring history to life on the written page. Every love story is unique, but everything is felt more intensely in times of war. Blending history and romance, it's also a coming-of-age story for Brenda as a self-absorbed young woman until she realizes that not all of her mother's reactions and responses were about her, and not all of Charlie's reactions and responses were about her.Another part of the history of WWII that I never knew but having read this story will never forget.

[nancyluebke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story sure pulls out a lot of feels and is based at least in part on history. I received this for free and I voluntarily chose to review this. I've given this a 5* rating. Not sure this should be read by the under 18 readers. This whole story is about WW II and the bombing of Japan. This author captures the high emotions of both sides of this event. I must say, I, myself, am torn on this issue. My mother's first fiancé was one of the one's killed at Pearl Harbor. A young man goes for a job, and is lead to do mathematics' work. It goes from there. A good book to do some soul searching for yourself.

[angeljmartin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is probably the best book I've read based during a war. It held my attention from beginning to end, even though some parts were a bit confusing to me. Even with the confusion - mostly about war and organs - I did learn about both subjects, which is always lovely to me. The alternating perspectives was also a bit confusing until the very end.The character development, for Brenda especially, was great. I couldn't stand her for a good chunk of the book - probably up until the last fourth of the book. I always love characters who recognize their mistakes and work to change things. I also loved the development for her mother. It was heartwarming to watch her soften and act more caring towards her entire family.The writing itself was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of a Nicholas Sparks book, though maybe with a little more depth into certain topics. This was my first book by this author, but with how much I adored this book, I'll absolutely be looking into his others as soon as I can.My favorite thing about this book was the realistic aspect. Kiernan showed the toll war takes on everyone involved - whether that be the partners and family of soldiers or the soldiers themselves. He showed how it can affect marriages, families, and mental health.Overall, this was absolutely a book that was worth reading. I learned a lot about the war, organs, and even relationships. The writing was wonderful, and it felt so real at times that I'd feel as if I were a part of the story myself. The book does contain some sensitive subjects, so it may be best to read with some caution. Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via JeanBookNerd Tours and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[katherinegregg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Universe of Two is a love story based roughly on the life of Charlie Fisk, a mathematician who was part of the Manhattan Project during WWII. Brenda, just out of high school and hoping to attend a music conservatory, works at the family organ shop in Hyde Park, IL. She meets Charlie who comes into the shop and enjoys listening to Brenda play the organ. Charlie has been brought to Chicago to work on a secret project which even he doesn't fully understand. As Charlie and Brenda's relationship becomes more serious, Charlie is sent to Los Alamos, NM to continue working on a top secret project. Eventually Brenda follows Charlie to NM where they marry. Charlie's work is part of the Manhattan Project and when the nuclear bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he becomes deeply troubled and obsessed with the devastating number of lives that were lost. After Los Alamos Charlie is given the opportunity to further his education/career at Stanford which he ultimately forgoes for a life in the organ business.

[janarose1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mathematician Charlie Fish is put to work in New Mexico on the Manhattan project. His fiancée, Brenda, travels across the country to live in New Mexico, where they can meet up on weekends and at the odd time. Thinking of the implications of his work, Charlie suffers greatly, unsure if he is able to do his part in building the bomb. Left in the dark about his true work, Brenda encourages him to "man up" and "do his part."This book was well written, and engaging. I could not put it down. Both Charlie and Brenda were dynamic and interesting characters. I really felt for their plight, and found myself rooting for them. Overall, well worth picking up.

[jhoaglin-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel tells a fictionalized account about the life of Charlie Fisk and his wife, Brenda. Much of the story is revealed as Brenda as an old woman looks back at their lives. The story starts in 1943, in Chicago, where Brenda Dubie works in her parents' music store while her father and brother are away in the war effort. Into the store one evening wanders Charlie Fisk, a brilliant mathematician who graduated from Harvard at the age of 18, and is now working for the military at the University of Chicago. Brenda has put her hopes to attend a music conservatory in Ohio on hold for now. But now she plays the organ for Charlie, demonstrating all the many voices the instrument can assume. Soon Brenda and Charlie are spending a great deal of time together, until Charlie is sent to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work on some top secret military project.The author makes Brenda a very central part of this story, even as Charlie's role in the activities at Los Alamos becomes more clear. The conflict Charlie feels about what he is doing, and where it might lead, also becomes a part of Brenda's life as well. There is much less information about their lives after the war, except some detail about the efforts they made to make positive contributions to the world, to assuage the guilt they both felt.Although I am not a fan of the typical romance story, I enjoyed this retelling of the life and marriage of these two historical figures. This is my second book by Stephen Kiernan, and I like the stories he weaves from the research he undertakes.My thanks to LibraryThing First Reviewers program for the free copy of this book I received.

[jillian_kay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a WWII book that focuses on the building of the atomic bomb. Charlie is a mathematician working in Los Alamos and Brenda moves to be with him and play organ at a local church. I thought it was interesting that Charlie was based on a real person.Although I thought I was done reading books about WWII the part of the story that introduces the organ music and repairs makes this one a little different, and I enjoyed it.

[jacsun · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book begins with a pleasant romance between Brenda who works in her father's music store and Charlie who starts to hang out there. It's very charming to imagine the two together. Charlie is a mathematician working for the government in Chicago during WWII. His determination and intelligence gets him promoted to the Las Alamos lab where it begins to make your head spin.

While I learned about the Atomic Bomb years ago, to read about fictional characters working there was another experience. In the US News, it says, "We cannot be proud of what we have done." Charlie thinks about this after the bomb has hit. This about sums it up: "Consider mankind as a species. Is it a collection of angels who make music and art and automobiles? Or is it a mob of monsters?" Something to think about.

I would rate this historical fiction high and hope that many more people read it.

[sensitivemuse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the love story of Charlie and Brenda throughout the novel. They each have their own point of view but when they’re together you can feel their love and chemistry even though at first, they both didn’t seem to quite mesh well. But yet it’s realistic in a sense on how a couple first meet. We test each other first and get a feel for things before we really start to reveal who we truly are. This is what you see between Charlie and Brenda and them evolving together is delightful to read.Brenda as a character is brash and hard to like. She acts spoiled and entitled but it’s her strong character that helps Charlie in the long run and exactly what he needs as he progresses through his career. Charlie on the other hand is her opposite; reserved but thoughtful and radiates a quiet intelligence. but it’s nice to see how these two compliment each other and find what they’re missing in their lives. It unexplainably feels right when both of them are together. The plot is told in each of their views with the creation of the atom bombs in the forefront of Charlie’s life. I was concerned at first because I was anticipating a lot of terminology I would not be familiar with. Luckily this doesn’t get complicated and is a simplified version of the creation of these bombs without the lingo. It’s a very interesting plot and unsettling at the same time as we all know the outcome of these bombs. Yet on the other hand it was also interesting to see what happened after the bombs were dropped. The guilt some characters faced, but also those that would capitalize on it to expand the armaments industry. It’s a beautiful love story and a good read. I’m glad I got picked to read this to review! I do recommend this one. It’s beautifully written.

[dallenbaugh_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As other people have pointed out this book is slow to get started and Charlie seems a little too one dimensional and Brenda a little too mean, but there are hints throughout from Brenda's older self that this is a story worth pursuing, and so it is. For one thing it is a fascinating and horrifying look at how things might have looked on "The Hill" during the development of the Atomic Bomb. It is also a satisfying look at how Brenda develops as a fitting partner to Charlie. It further develops Charlie's character showing his conflicting view of the work he is doing as he fully comes to realize the type of weapon he is helping to develop. Perhaps it takes a little too long for these things to occur but I couldn't stop reading this well done story so I give it a strong thumbs up.

[amelianovich · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I am definitely in the minority for the star rating. I made it to page 150 and gave up. For me I found the story uninteresting especially all the endless pages about Charlie’s job. And Brenda, the girlfriend, drove me nuts! What a baby! She was a snot and verbally mean to poor Charlie. She was self-centered, unhappy , and never grew up. Maybe that is one of the reasons why I didn’t finish. Time to move on! (Solely my opinion. Read it. You may like the story better than me!)

[bettytaylor56 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book took me completely by surprise. I really liked Kiernan’s earlier book “The Baker’s Secret” so felt comfortably sure that I would enjoy this one. But I never imagined that a book, inspired by the life of the man that developed the detonator for the atom bomb, would, or even could, contain such beautiful writing and feelings of such tenderness. My heart really felt as though it would break for Charlie as he struggled with his consciousness for creating a device – the Gadget - that took so many lives. The story opens with Charlie’s musician wife Brenda looking back on her life with Charlie. I could sense the moments of regret she had for not always appreciating Charlie for his best qualities. Then their love story plays out throughout the rest of the book.But this book is much more than a love story. While one side of Charlie was the mathematician, he also had a strongly sensitive side that loved working on organs. Yes, organs. He later went on to build organs. I learned quite a bit about the beauty and complexity of the organ as I read the book. But I also enjoyed the chapters that dealt with the scientific work Charlie did. Charlie’s feelings of guilt and redemption were remarkably balanced.“…the greatest kinds of strength are hidden, and move slowly, and cannot be stopped by anything until they have changed the world. Which he did twice.”The character development was superb, giving a vast array of people who were a part of Charlie and Brenda’s life. All the characters were presented in ways that I actually had an emotional response to them, whether it was Charlie’s fellow workers – some of whom also dealt with their own moral dilemmas - or the townspeople who engaged more with Brenda. The townspeople, who provided the support services, for the men “on the Hill” had no idea what was being developed. They all felt completely authentic with their strengths and their flaws. "Whatever you love, no matter how fiercely, you will lose it one day. That is the only certainty. Therefore be as kind as you can."Thanks to the publisher William Morrow for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

[leighannewrites · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first half was very slow, but from encouragement from other readers, I continued to read on. It did get a lot better but wished it hadn't taken so long. I really enjoyed his proviso book the Baker's Secret so I was a bit disappointed I did not love Universe of Two more. One of the main criticism I have of this book is that everything was left to the end. Character development as well as the plot. The publisher needs to change the blurb of the book as I don't think it represents the book accurately. It was a decent read, just not a fantastic one like I was hoping.

[reb922 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book. It was an interesting look into the world of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Interwoven with a love story it was something different for those who are fans of WWII historical fiction. The science and peek into the moral issues and struggle of the scientists working on the atomic bomb was interesting to read about.

[ang709 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book from start to finish. The beginning pulled me in, and the ending moved me. Brenda sometimes got on my nerves, but I really enjoyed seeing her growth throughout the story, as well as the development of her relationship with Charlie. Just a word about the description of this book: It sounds as if the story is equally split between Charlies' work and his search for redemption after the war. Actually, the large majority of the story is about his work on the Manhattan Project (and the love story that grows around it), with just a small section dedicated to after the war. I didn't mind, but I mention this in case someone feels misled by the description.Thank you to LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program for the early read.

[hubblegal-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a quite interesting novel very loosely based on the life of Charles Fisk, who worked on the design of the detonator for the atomic bomb in the 1940’s. I’m not usually fond of historical novels that include more fiction than fact but I did enjoy this one. There’s also the love story between Charles and Brenda, which I wasn’t that fond of. What I found most fascinating about this book was when it focused on Charles’ dawning realization of just what he was working on and what implications it could have on this world. Recommended.

[mel927 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. I inhaled this book. I read it in one day. Beautiful characters you could get behind and root for. Subject matter so interesting. Weaving organ music into The Manhattan Project so deftly was genius.

[susan0316 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have read all of Stephen Kiernan's books so I knew I was going to enjoy Universe of Two before I turned the first page. What I didn't realize was how deeply the book would affect me and that I'd still be thinking about it a week after I finished it. This is a beautifully written book about love and guilt and redemption.The year is 1943 and Charlie meets Brenda when he comes into the music store that her mother owns and she works at. At first, she didn't think much of him. She was more interested in all of the soldiers on leave who wanted to dance and pay attention to her. Charlie wasn't very impressive when he first asked Brenda to play a song for him on the organ but as he kept coming in to the store, she found herself looking forward to his visits. Charlie was a Harvard graduate, a brilliant mathematician and was working for the government on the Manhattan Project. He had no idea exactly what he was working on and only knew his small part of the entire project with the rest being kept in secret. When he is sent to Los Alamos, he and Brenda plan to write to each other but that was a poor substitute for being together so she joins him in New Mexico. Charlie knew that he was working on a project for the government but had no idea that they were creating the first atomic bomb. He only knew that he was creating a detonator. Once he realized what the project was all about, he wanted to quit when he understood the possible devastation of this bomb. Once the bombs strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the feelings of culpability devastate him and Brenda. When the war is over, the government agrees to pay for him to go to Stanford to get his doctorate but he finds everyone excited about the possibilities of atomic energy and realizes that he doesn't want to be part of it. He quit school and he and Brenda look for a career that will bring joy into the world and help to ease the guilt they feel over his part in building the atomic bomb.The writing in this book is exquisite and the characters are multi-dimensional - the reader sees the good and the bad in the two main characters. My prediction is that this will be a very popular spring 2020 novel. I already know that it will be in my top 10 books for the year.Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.